This bill changes how health insurance rules work when companies sell coverage across multiple states. Right now, insurance companies have to follow the rules of each state where they operate. This bill would let an insurance company pick one state as its "home base" and follow that state's rules everywhere it does business, even in other states. So if an insurer picks, say, Texas as its primary state, it could sell insurance in California, New York, and other states while only following Texas insurance rules. The other states where the insurance is sold would lose the ability to enforce their own insurance regulations on that company. Only the primary state the insurer chose would have the power to oversee and enforce rules. This is a significant shift because it means consumers in different states could end up with very different insurance protections depending on which state their insurer picked as its home base, rather than being protected by their own state's insurance laws. The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to study how this change affects things like insurance coverage options, costs, and consumer protections.

To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for cooperative governing of individual health insurance coverage.

Biggs, Andy

 <p>This bill establishes which state law governs health insurers offering coverage in multiple states. Specifically, the bill provides that the laws of a state designated by a health insurer (primary state) apply to individual health insurance coverage offered by that insurer in any other state (secondary state) if the coverage, states, and insurer comply with the conditions of this bill. Insurers are exempted from any secondary state's laws that would prohibit or regulate the operation of the insurer in that state. The primary state is given sole jurisdiction to enforce its covered laws in any secondary state.</p> <p>The Government Accountability Office must study the effect of this bill on specified health insurance issues.</p>